


I Scream, You Scream

by consistentlyaffectionate



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: F/F, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-02
Packaged: 2018-09-02 18:43:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8679106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/consistentlyaffectionate/pseuds/consistentlyaffectionate
Summary: Human ice cream shop AU"Y'know, you can't keep thinking everything is perfect all the time. At some point you can't keep living fantasies." Amethyst mumbled, looking back down to her lap.Fantasies? Pearl did not live in a fantasy. In fact, she was the most realistic person she knew.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Since it's hitting winter I figured I'd warm up with an ice cream shop au. I'm not exactly sure where it's headed at the moment, but I've had an ice cream shop au for pearlmethyst in my head for ages and it was finally time to work with it.

Pearl hummed softly to herself as she took a peach in the palm of her hand. She had been doing this for an hour or so, and she naturally had a bit of a system worked out. One slice around to cut the peach in half- and since the peaches were so fresh, it only took a swipe or two to get the fuzzy skin off in one piece. Then it was four slices down, three across, and she was onto the next half. Rose’s shop needed some help, it was the middle of summer, so people were undeniably going to come to the ice cream shop for something nice and cool. However, the peach ice cream was supposed to be made available for tomorrow morning, and Rose didn’t have the time to peel the three pecks of peaches she still had in the back. Pearl, in her eagerness to assist at her favorite job, with her favorite manager, came in on her only day off this week in order to finish up the job.  
While Rose smiled, answered everyone’s questions and filled orders up front, Pearl sat in the back on a couple of crates in front of boxes of peaches, and an unusually sweet smelling trash can. She certainly didn’t mind this job in the least, she got to sit back and not have to run around scooping ice cream, and it came at a rate that wasn’t so much tedious as it was peaceful.  
Of course, that all had to stop at some point. The alarm on the door beeped as it was swung open by the loudest, shortest, and (in Pearl’s opinion) most annoying person on staff. Amethyst. “Hey Rose! Did you need anything before I hop on a window?” She called as she jammed her time card into the machine, listening to it beep and groan before spitting out a freshly stamped sheet.  
Rose poked her head into the back from where she stood, scooping what could be mint chocolate chip. “Actually, I don’t have much of a line. Would you mind grabbing a few crates and a paring knife and helping Pearl out? I feel bad about making her do it on her own.”  
“Y-you don’t have to-” Pearl started, not wanting to sit there in silence while the two talked.  
“Pearl, you’ve been here for an hour already working on your own. I think you could use some help.” Rose said as she topped off the cone.  
Though she was sure Rose didn’t mean it in a malicious way, Pearl could certainly handle the peaches on her own, and she did not want any help, let alone from Amethyst.  
But, it wasn’t like Pearl could say much to challenge Rose’s authority. So she sat and continued slicing, one, two, three, four, one, two, three. Done. Her groove for slicing, peeling, and cutting was interrupted as Amethyst didn’t pick up, but drag the plastic crates across the floor, letting them screech and cry against the tile. She didn’t even bother saying hello to Pearl before jumping right in with questions. “So how are we doing this? I’m sure you’ve got some anal system worked out.”  
“It’s not-!" Pearl had to stop herself from going off, after only sitting with Amethyst for 30 seconds. “You just need to take a whole peach, slice it in half and then take out the pit. Then you slice the skin off and cut four times vertically, three horizontally and then put them in the container with the rest of the sliced ones and put the lid back on top.”  
“Aye aye, captain.” Amethyst saluted Pearl, touching the brim of her hat with the paring knife. She grabbed a peach and started her work.  
Of course Pearl had to keep an eye on Amethyst, seeing as she could take anything and turn it into a mess. While Pearl cut her peaches calmly yet meticulously, Amethyst was almost violent, and her rushed jobs left a bit of peach skin on the slices, and they weren't rounded as the skin was cut off in jagged strips. It didn’t take long for juice to come running down towards Amethyst’s elbow. “Guh, what made you wanna come in on your day off for something like this?” She questioned Pearl, grabbing a handful of paper towels from the prep table next to them.  
"I just," Pearl furrowed her brow, contemplating her answer. "I just thought this might be relaxing."  
"Relaxing? Look at this place!"  
Taking a glance around, Pearl came to realize that a place that seemed tranquil to her, to others may be anything but. The previously white walls were stained and the ice cream machines tumbled and whirred, the fans in the freezers let out occasional squeaks and screams and the trash can in front of them was swarmed by fruit flies. Where they came from? Pearl had no idea. She hadn't noticed any of this before Amethyst came in.  
"You hadn't noticed?" Amethyst leaned in, cocking an eyebrow.  
"I suppose not." Pearl redirected her eyes to the peach she was working on. She hadn't made a single slice since Amethyst spoke up.  
"Y'know, you can't keep thinking everything is perfect all the time. At some point you can't keep living fantasies." Amethyst mumbled, looking back down to her lap.  
Fantasies? Pearl did not live in a fantasy. In fact, she was the most realistic person she knew.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty much just plot setup sorry! Next chapter will be better  
> ALSO! To explain the shop they work in, think of it like Beach Citywalk Fries, it's a walk up shop and customers dine outside.

Pearl couldn't exactly say she was offended- okay, yes she was. She was pissed about the accusation that she lived a lie. A fantasy world? Never. Pearl was completely rational, she saw imperfections only where they needed to be noticed. Like how Amethyst had a habit of picking at her lips, and each time Pearl saw her there was a different array of peeled skin and sometimes a strip of dried blood where Amethyst had picked at it too hard.  
Or how Pearl noticed stains on the white and blue tile while she was weaving in between stainless steel cabinets that held buckets of ice cream. That was when she would call out that she wanted to sweep and mop during closing and someone else would point out that she always wanted to sweep and mop, why didn't she ever do dishes?  
She noticed the out of place hairs on both herself and others, she noticed when there were too many chocolate chips in one spot in the chunky chocolate chip ice cream, she noticed when the machine they used to blend ice cream and candy toppings wasn't in its usual position, or when someone dripped a bit of ice cream just out of her reach through the drive thru windows they served out of.  
But she never seemed to realize what Amethyst did. Amethyst was good at spotting outliers in a crowd. She knew when to charge for ice cream before scooping it to avoid someone dining and dashing. She had a sense of what people were going to order. She knew every regular customer by name and had their order ready before they stepped up. She was the one who did dishes, she was meticulous about the scoops she had to wash ice cream out of, but she could finish dishes faster and better than anyone on staff.  
The two were strange in both similarities and differences. That Pearl knew.  
Her thoughts were interrupted as the door chimed again, announcing the arrival of Lapis. Lapis hummed to herself as she stuck her time sheet in, gave a little nod to Pearl as she passed by, and then everyone could hear her voice as she squeaked the window open and called "I can help someone over here!"  
Now the windows, the windows were something everyone noticed. All of the staff often made fun of each other for their "window voices" and attitudes. Pearl, for example, went higher pitched than usual, and acted way more cheery than she ever would to a complete stranger. She had the same opening and closing statements for everyone, 'I can help whoever's next' where she placed emphasis on 'next' making her voice do a roller coaster wave of sound, up in volume, and then back down. Then, as she handed napkins out she gave a bright smile that made her eyes crinkle as she said, 'Have a great day! Enjoy your ice cream.'  
One of her first weeks on the job, Rose even complimented Pearl on how nice she was to customers. But Amethyst continued to mock her by shouting "neEXt" whenever the windows were closed.  
There were little quirks with everyone on the windows. Amethyst always tilted her hat to a customer before she shut the window to grab their order, Sapphire flicked her pen away from the napkin she wrote orders on when the customer said that was all they needed, and Ruby made funny faces at children through the window when she came back with orders. Everyone was different at work, but they all seemed to click when it was demanded that they work together.  
Then why did Amethyst bother Pearl so much? It wasn’t like she’d done anything cruel to her. She was just, different. The way she stood on the tips of her toes to reach the counter windows at a comfortable height, the way she would joke just as everyone’s morale drooped and they needed a smile more than anything, and the way she sat right now. Hunched over, eyes focused in concentration as if the only thing that mattered in the world at this moment, was half a peach. She noticed things before they even mattered. And Pearl always noticed after.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This next chapter seemed a bit short, so I ended up combining it with chapter 4. On a note unrelated to this fic: I hate research papers. That's all, I just needed to state that somewhere.

The next evening, Pearl stood in front of the blender, waiting for a shake to finish. She jumped as a window slammed and Amethyst yelled, “I forgot the bananas!”  
She grabbed the knife and half a banana off of the sundae bar before charging out the back door, her ponytail with its half faded dye chased after her. Pearl sighed before pouring the milkshake into a cup; she’d forgotten the bananas on a banana split, the very thing it was named for. It looked like Amethyst wasn’t as perceptive as she seemed.  
As Pearl waved a guest off and called for the next, Amethyst walked into the store again with a sigh of relief. “How could you forget bananas on a banana split?” A nasally voice inquired, asking the exact question on Pearl’s mind. It was Peridot, who turned around with a shit-eating grin on on her face after closing the window.  
“Don’t wanna hear it Peri!” Amethyst said, washing her hands before coming back to the window, “The customer didn’t complain, and she still gave me a tip.”  
Peridot was the closing manager this evening, and as long as the numbers added up, nothing bothered her too much. She didn’t even retaliate, instead she let Amethyst get back on the window without another word. It was understandable, the line at the front was reaching the end of the boardwalk, and continued to grow faster than the three employees in the store could make it shrink.  
The only sound between all of them was the slamming of ice cream cabinets, and the static of the radio Peridot insisted in turning down before the shop got busy. Pearl balanced three waffle cones in her hand to get them finished and out of the window as quickly as possible. Meanwhile Amethyst nodded at her window, repeating an order to a customer to make sure it was correct, and Peridot placed dishes on top of the cabinets of flavors she needed before she even began scooping them.  
Time passed fairly quickly between the trio, and soon enough the line was at a manageable size, one they could look at without becoming anxious over a customer’s impatience. The clock read 8:45, and they had an hour and fifteen minutes until close. Pearl closed her window, and turned her head towards the busy Peridot. “Can I do dishes tonight?”  
“You’re volunteering to do dishes?” Amethyst sputtered, looking up from a cake cone of chocolate.  
Pearl nodded, “I haven’t done them in a while. It’s only fair.” She didn’t have any customers left to serve, and Amethyst and Peridot were the type to refuse help unless it was a big order.  
“Knock yourself out,” Peridot said it as if she was entertained by the notion of Pearl doing dishes. “Amethyst can sweep and mop tonight. Just get back there, there are a lot of buckets.”  
This made Pearl smile, she’d been given the job without anyone retorting that she couldn’t or shouldn’t. She stepped into the back to face the sinks, and the castle of stacked buckets from changed ice creams. She didn’t think she wanted to do this anymore. Soon, peanut butter melted down the drain, leaving Pearl with a scent that wasn’t remotely appetizing. She’d been working hard to clean the dishes, but they just weren’t agreeing with her. Concave surfaces spit water back at her, she hated the scrub brush she had to use that was half bare of its bristles, and her back hurt from leaning over the sink for over an hour.  
First it was the five gallon buckets, then the sundae bar, the blenders, the hot fudge machine and finally the scoops. There were two for each ice cream and it made Pearl want to scream.  
The lights had already been turned off and Peridot was counting the registers. Amethyst was up front, quickly sweeping along the tile and no doubt, Pearl thought, leaving a mess behind.  
Pearl capped the spraying head over a scoop, pulsing it with water and checking if it was clean before Amethyst rolled by with the mop bucket, “What are you, stupid?”  
What was that supposed to mean? “No,” Pearl replied uncertainly, “I’m just making sure they’re clean.”  
“Give me that.” Amethyst bumped Pearl to the side, turning on the faucet instead of using the sprayer. She ran the scoops through the water two at a time while scrubbing at them with her thumbs. She tossed them into the next sink filled with soapy water, and stirred the scoops around with the scrub brush hastily before dumping them in handfuls over to the rinsing sink, then to the sanitizer. Amethyst was so efficient with this that she had the scoops done in minutes, where it would have taken Pearl much longer.  
Pearl also noticed how clean Amethyst stayed, it was like she’d never washed dishes in the first place; while Pearl looked like she had a wet t shirt contest- with herself.  
Silently, Pearl slipped away to finish mopping. She decided this was the last time she would do dishes, as the clock struck 10:15 and they were all still here due to her failures. Pearl decided to stay quiet on this subject, even though she was well aware of her part in this. She rolled the mop bucket by the sinks, which Amethyst was still scrubbing at. “Hey Amethyst,” Pearl said meekly, “do you want me to scoop your ice cream?”  
It was the best peace offering Pearl could think of, employees got one free scoop for each shift they worked. She knew Amethyst always got one, but Pearl realized she didn’t know which flavor was Amethyst’s favorite. She also realized she didn’t know why she was curious about Amethyst’s favorite flavor, what did it matter to her?


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw shit guess who's back!  
> After moving in to school I got a comment asking for an update, but I had NO CLUE where my file for this had gone, because believe me, I wanted to update too.  
> But I looked through my Google Drive and found it!! So uh, sorry for not updating for like a year (more than a year?) but here I am and here this is.

Amethyst stayed quiet for a moment, focused over the sinks. Pearl decided to move along and dump the mop water when she was stopped by Amethyst's voice, hesitant at first. “Y-yeah. I’ll take a cup of chocolate chip cheesecake,” chocolate cheesecake ice cream, chocolate chips and cheesecake chunks; it was a sweet-tooth’s delight.  
Pearl nodded, and dumped the mop water before heading up to the front. She grabbed two cups and freshly washed scoops before turning to the large stainless steel cabinets in front of her. To anyone who didn’t work at the store, this would seem intimidating. There were eight cabinets which each held anywhere from six to 24 buckets of ice cream. They were unmarked and, when cleaned of ice cream spills, had no indication of which flavors were where. Every employee had a mental map of the flavors memorized by their second day on the job.  
Pearl stepped over to the correct cabinet, opening the door as quietly as possible. The rest of the store was almost silent, and most of the lights were turned off. It almost felt as if no one was in there, and Pearl scared herself momentarily with the thought. Calling her mind back to her, she set the dishes down and methodically scooped two cups of chocolate chip cheesecake. She carried the two dishes to the front counter carefully, as if she would shatter them with just one touch. Popping lids on them and pulling out two spoons, Pearl jumped at the sound of a voice. “Are the windows up there locked?” It was Peridot, she stood from her position back behind the half wall of a barrier that split the store in half. She was still barely visible from her position, she was the shortest one on staff after all; she even had a step stool towards the front so that she could speak to customers at a comfortable height.  
Taking a look to her left, Pearl noticed that none of the windows were locked, and the napkin dispensers were still sitting outside. Pearl merely shook her head no, and made her way towards the side counters to pull the napkins in before locking every window in the store. When she was finished, Peridot had already returned to her seat, and was fumbling with the fax machine that sat below their cake decorating station. Pearl grabbed the two dishes of ice cream that had been sitting on the counter, and walked to the back to find Amethyst pulling the sink drains. “Thanks for finishing the dishes.” Pearl barely spoke above a whisper, her guilt overtaking her vocal cords.  
Amethyst turned towards Pearl and nodded as if she was unaffected by Pearl’s statement. “No prob. I mean, I messed up too so we’re even.” She held out a hand, and Pearl took it to shake it nervously. Amethyst pulled away and cocked an eyebrow at Pearl, “I was asking for my ice cream.” She still smiled though, and it eased Pearl’s anxiety.. Somehow.  
Pearl thrust a dish and spoon into Amethyst’s hands as Peridot walked by with the cash deposit for the office. Peridot and Amethyst both giggled at her, and it made a heat flush over Pearl’s cheeks. “Come on, let’s get out of here so I can go home. I have a Camp Pining Hearts episode on my DVR I need to watch.” Peridot pretended to be unaffected by the conversation, or lack thereof, that she just witnessed.  
Pearl simply nodded, and followed Peridot to the back door. Amethyst followed suit, but stopped before the time clock and clocked all three of them out.  
Stepping out the door to the humid sticky heat of a summer night, the three walked to their cars and waved each other good night. Amethyst was the first to take off and Peridot followed as Pearl leaned her head back against her car seat. She popped the lid off her ice cream, and took a bite before she could even think about what she was doing. Pearl had never been a fan of ice cream, or sweet treats in general, and she only got ice cream from the shop when something had gone really wrong during the day. Whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not, something had gone wrong today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While writing this my brain kinda went PTTTHHHBBBB NO so I'm sorry for this not being longer, but I'll try to update here again soon (hopefully not after a year)


End file.
